This game was a bit of a landmark for me. It was my fourth game played with Général d’Armée 2, and the third at my club. We played it to completion (we had started the 13th move out of a possible 14 when we decided the French had won), giving not much more than 20 minutes a turn. This is the sort of fluency I have conspicuously failed to achieve so far. It was also the first game I have played based in 1813, rather than 1815. The system is now firmly established as my favourite for Napoleonic games, and I’m still happy to play it virtually without modification.

I have been taking GDA2 games from the published scenario books (though these are designed for GDA1). These may be a bit questionable historically, but they have been designed as playable scenarios. Having played the Gilly scenario from the 1815 book twice, and not ready for the much bigger St Armand or Planchenoit, I thought I’d look at the 1813 book – the other period when I can field my late war Prussians against the French. The first scenario in the book, and the obvious place to start, was the one for Weissenfels. This encounter, just before the Battle of Lützen, is described as a “skirmish” by Nafziger, and historically it is noted for two things. First, it featured the death of longstanding French Marshal Bessières. Second it showed the fresh French Marie-Louises standing up capably to swarms of French cavalry. According to Nafziger the battle was largely about the French infantry beating off swarms of Russian cavalry – with only a single Russian jager regiment present as infantry.

The GDA scenario is very different. Russians have seven battalions of infantry (three of Line jagers, four of Reservist line infantry), two brigades of cavalry (four units) and one of Cossacks (three units). The cavalry looks faithful to the historical order of battle, though not quite as overwhelming as those historical (and doubtlessly French) accounts suggest. The French order of battle is closer to history: Souham’s 8th Division, with 15 battalions of infantry (historically two brigades; four for games purposes) supported by a brigade of cavalry that was stronger than any of the Russian brigades. The Russians are defending the Rippach stream, and the French need to get to the village Rocken at the far side of the table by Turn 14. This is a very interesting scenario, with the defenders deployed much further forward than typical, and so more ground to play with, but without enough forces to mount a full defence of the stream. The French have plenty of troops but are constrained by the stream, and half the troops they have are Recruits.

The first problem is that I don’t have any Russians. I could simply have substituted the units for Prussians of the same quality, turning my Landwehr cavalry into Cossacks. But I wanted to field historical formations, and since this wasn’t really a historical battle I saw now reason not to use Prussian troops from the Lützen scenario. I took two brigades of infantry from that source, but dropped the grenadier battalions. That gave me seven battalions of infantry (two of Reservist quality, the rest Line). I gave them two brigades of cavalry from the Lützen scenario, plus another brigade that was at the battle but not in the scenario; I also topped up the dragoon brigade (consisting of one cavalry unit and one battery of horse artillery) with an extra small unit of dragoons. Each of the Prussian cavalry brigades consisted of a standard-sized unit and a small unit, reflecting the Prussian use of four squadrons of one regiment in their brigades, and two from another. This makes the Prussians slightly stronger than the Russians in the scenario, but with one fewer units of cavalry (but no Cossacks) and a weaker horse artillery battery. I also let them have the horse artillery from the start, rather than it turning up later.

The French forces in this scenario feature in the Lützen scenario too – though some have been upgraded in quality, and I used them unchanged. The advantage of this is that I can print out a full set of labels for Lützen, with a few extras. That means I will be set up for the Lützen, if and when we get to play it. I sampled a video from a GDA2 veteran, Scott Driscoll (Check Your Leader TV) who played Reisswitz. He made the village on the Russian side of the stream, Göhren, a Tactical Objective, which would certainly affect the character of the game. However this isn’t in the main scenario – and I don’t think it was really appropriate for a delaying action like this.

It’s worth talking about the rules. GDA2 is often criticised for the way it is written – the book is 112 pages long (or 99 plus appendices on army choice and the index). It sometimes quite hard to find the rule you want to look up – we spent a lot time doing just that in our October game. It would be wrong to say that it is badly written. I found them to be always clear, and although rules are often repeated in different parts of the book, these are (almost always) consistent. I can’t think of any typos or obvious mistakes. It has an index. All this is a wonder by the standards of modern rule-writing. Still, I much prefer a more compact style. I decided to write my own summarised version (I actually do this quite often). I left out the preliminaries of the battle (up to scouting and deployment), and the procedures and tables summarised in the four-page quick reference sheet. This came to ten pages of fairly compact script. I did use it a few times in the game, but I had missed a couple of things, and often I wanted to assure myself with the original. Its main value was that it helped me thoroughly familiarise myself with the rules. I knew my way round the rulebook much better, especially since I had discovered the index! For copyright reasons though, I don’t think I can publish it here.

And so to the game. I took on the French, with Rod, my usual opponent at the club, taking on the Prussians. My scouting was good enough to show that he had placed one brigade of Infantry to cover the crossing on my right, while the left looked thinly covered. I had rather assumed he would might cover the right primarily with cavalry, so I adjusted accordingly. My plan was to seize the crossing on the extreme left with my cavalry brigade, and follow it with the smaller of my two more experienced infantry brigades, so try and sneak around his flank and on to the objective. The other more experienced brigade I put on the right with its artillery on the hill. The two brigades of Marie-Louises were to come on in Turn 2.

Rod had two brigades of infantry, but three crossings to cover. He covered the one on my right, and Göhren and its associated crossing on my centre-left. He possibly could have tried to cover both bridges with his right-hand brigade. Anyway he decided to leave it open. I had the initiative in Turn 1, gave may cavalry Forwards tasking, and got across the bridge, with the infantry following. Meanwhile the other brigade engaged in bombardment and skirmishing at the other crossing. the photo above shows the game at this point. In Turn 2 I moved the two brigades of Marie-Louises in, one to advance on Göhren on my left, and the other to support my right.

On my left I pushed the cavalry forward and it encountered a Prussian brigade sent to meet it – and decisively beat it after two rounds of combat (it was quite a bit stronger); it got a Falter result and eventually dispersed entirely. Meanwhile I tried wearing down the nearest Prussian infantry unit with canister from the horse battery – which was much slower going than I expected. However disaster befell the Marie-Louise brigade in Göhren. The first unit got a toe-hold in round one, in spite of coming in with a two dice disadvantage, and brought in a second battalion as reinforcement. But the tables turned, and the Prussian won in spite of the advantage having turned against them (they had a three or four dice disadvantage – I hadn’t remembered the rule about a two to one advantage in dice, though it may not have applied). Both French units retreated, putting their brigade onto Falter, and then it broke as it failed its Falter test. It required my CinC to intervene (Stand with Me!) to stop the remaining two units being lost.

On my right my infantry brigade tried forcing the crossing, but only being able to push across one unit at a time, and without especially good luck, I made little headway. The Marie-Louise brigade could only contribute its skirmishers, though these did manage to destroy the Prussian screen, rashly not withdrawn, and cause a Falter – which forced the CinC to intervene. My battery eventually destroyed the horse artillery battery (which had mauled one of my infantry units), causing another Falter on the dragoon brigade, which eventually recovered.

Meanwhile Rod started to move over his remaining cavalry brigade help shore up his right. My cavalry was on the edge of being worn down, so might have been vulnerable, and as time was moving on, I decided that this was the moment for a decisive move. My two battalions of my left infantry advanced towards Rocken. They then went onto a Forwards Tasking while my cavalry charged the Prussian cavalry to keep it diverted. This was enough for the leading French unit to reach Rocken. It was now Turn 13 and there was no way the Prussians were going to retrieve the situation. My plan had actually worked. They rarely survive contact with Rod’s deployments.

This game was a major success. Going forwards it leaves me to deal with a few things. I need more troops. With 24 figures in a standard unit of infantry (though only 8 cavalry), these games use a lot of infantry figures. Of course that gives them a satisfactory visual appearance. The last two games stretched my French collection. I had to bring in two units of Young Guard to stand in for line infantry for the Gilly game, and both those units and a unit of Middle Guard for this one. I need to put together a brigade or so late period French infantry to bolster the numbers. The Prussians are looking a bit stretched too. I could do with some more regular line infantry.

Also my terrain needs work. I have bases and buildings for two “villages” – I needed four this time, and the result was a bit threadbare. My homemade cardboard river pieces need an upgrade too. I think I might have to buy in some latex ones, though there is a bit too much regularity in their shapes. And while the table mat is OK, I could do with more fields and things to add a bit of visual interest.

The Lützen scenario is a way off at the moment. The French army is the much the same as for Weissenfels, if we go for the smaller game (some of the troops get upgraded). But the Prussians, now on the attack, need more than double the infantry (though less cavalry). And the game is 20 turns. This is a much bigger game and it would have to be played more quickly if it is to be completed in a day – a maximum of five hours playing time. More players would doubtless be a help. But it is something to aim at. There are three other Prussian-French scenarios in the two books – Mockern in 1813, and St Armand and Planchenoit for 1815. These battles are even bigger, though the 1815 games are 18 and 16 moves respectively. Something to aspire to! It’s a pity there are not more smaller scenarios like Gilly and Weissenfels.